I too have been urged by friends to write a book about my youth. In 1981, at the age of 18, I decided to reunite with my father and immigrated from the USA to the DDR. I was later expelled in 1986 for political reasons and lived elsewhere in Europe until my return in 1991 following the Fall of The Berlin Wall. I remained there until April of 2000 at which time I returned to the USA.
This book brought back some memories despite the difference in time. (The Author went to the DDR in 1948 at the age of 8. I went to the DDR in 1981 at the age of 18) I had no idea that there had been any other Americans that shared an even remotely similar story and Joel Agee does a great job of telling his story with far more emotion and prose than I ever could.
The book is a wonderful insight into life in a country that no longer exists...from the view point of an American child/young adult. I especially recommend it to anyone who has grown-up or lived in a country where they felt they did not belong. In my opinion, Agee entered the DDR in its infancy and left just as its darkest period began. I entered The DDR at the height of the Reagan Era and witnessed its collapse from within. Two historic phases. I only wish that both of us could have witnessed more.

I read Joel Agee's book "Twelve Years. An American Boyhood in East Germany" in German and in English and tried very hard to get a used copy of his first american edition - without any success. Finally, he is back again with a new edition, and allthough my english is not as good as it should be, I just want to write down some words abaout this book. For me who always lived in Western Germany it is one of the most interesting books about the communist part of Germany, the GDR (in german it's DDR). It was not meant to be a political book, but it has become one anyhow. The reader is not only enabled to follow a very private story of growing up as a boy (including all the problems most man - since they have been boys - know and prefer not to talk about it), but to understand how culture and everyday life had been transformed by the communist ideology in a way that could be critizised only by children: some simply laughed about it and learned, that even only to laugh could have negative consequences. And getting some idea of how adults did discuss the political penetration of everyday life makes you feel glad to be grown up in a non communist state - but still you can understand that this adults they had their living like others had, and that they were fathers and mothers having everyday problems like others had. This book indeed touched and pleased me. It is a marvellous written autobiographical kind of literature. If you'll read it, it will take a part of your heart and your intellect to. You'll have to love it.

I'm delighted to see that Joel Agee's memoir is now available again, and I look forward, with pleasure, to re-reading it. In beautiful prose, Agee not only reveals the pains and pleasures of his growing up (it could be anywhere), but gives us a portrait, from an unusual angle, of life in the newly formed German Democratic Republic, i.e.,communist East Germany, during the period 1948-1960. The historian will find the book of particular interest, but so will anyone else who enjoys entering the unsual world of a sensitive young man with a terrific eye for detail, and who is frank about his inner life.

Agee returned to the U.S. just as the amazing 60s were about to roll their thunder, and I can't wait to read his follow-up memoir, his "American Manhood" in another world far removed from the East Berlin of his youth.

One look at the pages of this wrenching book will tell the story. Roman Vishniac, secretly, in some cases, shot thousands of pictures of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe, shortly before they were swallowed up by the Holocaust.

Young, old, in-between are shown going about their ordinary lives, some already paying the price of the prevalent Eastern European anti-Semitism, virtually oblivious to what was coming their way.

You can't look at these pictures and not shudder: certainly no one in these pictures can still be alive, and it's not just because of the passage of time. Most of the people photographed here lived in the smaller villages, segregated in many cases from the Gentiles, wearing clothes that quickly and easily identified them to their destroyers.

Vishniac shot an estimated 16,000 pictures, but managed to get only about 2,000 out when he fled to the United States in 1940. We should be grateful for what he's given us, and mourn all that was lost.

I was amazed at the quality of the images and the sensitive approach to what has become an amazing record of that,which many of us could only imagine from verbal accounts.It is without doubt the best photographic recording of a society which was to be brutally decimated. Vishniac's photographic artistry in my mind are on a par with Cartier Bresson whom I greatly admire. Thanks to the publisher for printing such a wonderful book.

Open this book and you will enter a world of the vanished, but not vanquished. Roman Vishniac's stunning black and white photographs of the destroyed Jewish communities of Eastern Europe will surely enter your heart, as they have mine. The simple, sometimes stark compositions are primarily of the faces of Jews long lost in the flames of the Holocaust. Most of the photographs have a brief explanatory comment that gives them context. Vishniac takes us into the tiny basement apartments of Warsaw's Jewish porters, the logging villages of Carpathian Ruthenia, and the narrow streets of Vilna. I found myself drawn into that world where Jews worked, studied, walked on their way to and from synagogues or markets, plowed fields and played in the streets. My own family originated in that world, and I thank Roman Vishniac for giving me a glimpse of it. I highly recommend this book.

My husband and I were given this audio cassette and guide material for our honeymoon in Italy. We had a nice time. I probably would not have bought such a non-traditional tour guide before. But it turned out to be a discrete and fun way to visit the city.

I just got back from my first visit to Rome and Venice. It was fantastic and the Cicerone tours were really different and fun.

Next year we are planning to see France and I hope that you will have something for Paris by then.

What a great way to see the city! So easy to listen and look where you are going instead of trying to read a guidebook. In fact I learned things I had not seen in my guide book. If your time is short you can be sure that you will not miss the important sites and with the minimum of effort. The guide will also give you info about where to stop for a snack and find the all important toilet! When I came back the map helped me identify the pictures I took. I recommend it highly.

I used this guide while walking in London two years ago, and I'm taking it to London again this summer. The variety of walks is a joy. I did not see this book on sale while in London, and some English friends saw mine and wanted a copy for themselves. No wonder--it's that good. If you like to walk and do other exploring besides the usual London tourist things, then don't go to England without a copy of this book in your suitcase or backpack. My only suggestion to the author is to bind future editions of the the book in a way that the chapters can be removed and replaced. So I wouldn't have to carry the whole book along, I tore the pages out for each walk I did, and then taped them back in place afterward, but there must be a better way.

Highly recommended if you are planning an extended stay in London, or have been there a few times already and seen the major sites.

My favorite memories of six months spent working in London were of the walks I took from this book just about every weekend. Some of the walks are short enough that you can do two or three in a day, depending on what adventures arise. The best for me was Kew to Hammersmith, along the Thames, an all day walk, where I had tea in a church basement, a pint in a pub on Strand-on-the-Green, got caught in a rainstorm in a church graveyard, got lost in the woods on the grounds of Chiswick Manor...my workmates were very impressed, and started asking to come along!

Want to go to London, without leaving home? Or write about an adventure in London? This work is golden.

Meehan does a wonderful job of documenting and suggesting sites to visit. The ones we visited (that we could find) were great! However, the sites which aren't 'signed' (ie. listed as having signs pointing to it from the main road) are diffcult to find. Even some of the sites that are 'signed' aren't signed well, or consistently. Sometimes you'll have to guess at a cross roads, and if you don't get to the site, you'll have to backtrack and take the other. The problem we had most often is that the directions say to take a dirt road for about 1/2 mile (bring your metric conversion charts since they use kilometers in Ireland) and walk across a pasture at a cow gate. Sounds like an easy thing, until you get to Ireland and realize there are 25 cow gates on that particular road. We also found an error on a road number, which would have put us at least 30 miles in the wrong direction.
My suggestion--get this book! It really is a great one to have to plan your visit. But also get an Ordinance map, and plan on asking directions once you get to the nearest village. In addition to getting correct and more detailed directions, you may also be told about other sites not mentioned in the book! Some of the coolest places we went were suggested to us by locals!

This is an excellent long overdue guide to sacred sites in Ireland. Background information is very accurate and coherent.It's much more than a guide book, as it includes history , myth and some archaeological information, as well as personal reflections on the "vibes" from different spots. Fascinating reading for anyone who has even a remote interest in Irish culture.Well worth the money. Look forward to more books by the same author.

Meehan's book is extremely rich in historical, architecture, legend, story and geographical detail. Some of the sites she writes about were unknown to anyone but locals prior to her writing. The rich diversity of sacred sites, from neolithic to pre-Christian through to the Christian; sacred wells, the vastness of Knowth and Newgrange, stone circles, stone cairns, sacred hills, etc. The black and white photography is beautiful, capturing the magic of these sites. The organisation of the book, by province (different colours for each) and then by county allows for quick reference when travelling. The detailed directions allows even those of us who get lost easily to find sites hidden in some field far off the road. A must to meet the richness and history of the sacred on this island.

Having read two of Geoffrey Roberts' other books, I was eagerly awaiting the publication of "Victory at Stalingrad". My grandfather was killed in Stalingrad so I had a personal interest in reading about this period of the war. I was not disappointed. Roberts details the events of this amazing period of World War II with great understanding and does full justice to the true significance of the battle and the people who lost their lives.

Anyone interested in the history of World War II should read this book. In less than 200 pages Geoffrey Roberts analyzes the battle of Stalingrad and places it in the context of the entire war. In addition to providing a balanced, concise, and informative account of the battle and its importance, the book includes such valuable features as a chronology of the battle, 11 maps, a glossary of military terms, biographical notes on the main participants, and an invaluable guide to further reading.

Describing the American Civil war the then president described it as a fiery trial. Geoffrey Roberts has given us an account of another fiery trial. The book is an excellent read, describing not only the victory at Stalingrad but a short gripping account of the conflict on the eastern front. It is brief and to the point as well as having a factual analysis of the historical event.

While this is certainly one of the best and most accurate works written about the First Crusade, I am unsure I can go so far as to agree with the previous reviewer that it is the best. It is certainly thorough: the author has visited many of the sites and, where possible, reconstructed the battles in situ. While dedicated to a military perspective, he incorporates many elements, such as the religious and political antecedents, that provide the background necessary to any meaningful understanding of the crusaders' march into Syria and Palestine. As the author has made the effort to include many of the primary sources that to date remain untranslated, the Crusade chroniclers' accounts are more fully represented, allowing both the author and the reader to arrive at conclusions based upon a greater comparison and analysis of contemporary sources than is present in many other texts. Further, this is the first work I have come across that points out the significance of contribution made by Byzantine naval support, at least up to and including the seige of Antioch.

As a military history this work is outstanding, marred only by the author's at times inelegant and unclear sentence structure. For some, this work may be long on military tactics. Also, the casual reader should be aware that this is primarily a military history, and does not consider comprehensively all the religious and political events that led up and in part inform the First Crusade.

I was prompted to say something about this book after viewing various reader lists concerning the crusades and medieval war and finding this title absent; omissions due to ignorance, surely. Victory in the East is, simply, the best book on the First Crusade that you are likely to ever read. Trust me.

I first encountered this book at the Byzantine Center at Dumbarton Oaks. Six pages into it, I realized I had to own it. It is not just an invaluable account of a complicated time, but a superb military history, as effective to the novice as to the expert.

Dr. French shows himself to have a gift for explaining strategy and tactics clearly and for setting them within a context of politics (war by other means, if I may invert Clausewitz's dictum) and religion.

His diagrams are easy to understand, and his exposition of the siege of Antioch makes it readily comprehensible.

A very valuable work for the specialist, scholar, writer, or serious reader.

If you read Samuel's book "German Boy" you just wanted to know more about that time in German history and the people who lived in it. This book is somewhat perfect for it, because as it's premise it is about the German Children of the war. It is an interesting read because you get an insight into what happened during and after the war to the people in the book. They tell many insighful stories and you find out that they were also good people in Germany and not every one was a Nazi. Something every one needs to learn.

Where this book fails really and it could have been avoided by interviewing either more people, making the book shorter or getting different aspect of the life during and after the war and concentrating there; either way, the stories seem to repeat themselves. If you read three interviews of the people in the book, it seems like you have read most of the other interviews. At times you get confused and think you are reading about the same person you read about 50 pages ago but you don't. It's truly understandable that all these people had the same story to tell but better editing and more detalied interviews could have addeed more to the book.

Even though the Map is very helpful another map would have been welcomed that discribed where these people use to live. But the photos in this book are really touching. You learn many things about the postwar year of Germany and how the war never really ended after all the shots were fired. There was still lots of poverty, starvation, and crimes being commmited because you were of a Different Ethinic backround than the people who were now in Control. Much like it was when the Nazi's were in control. The things, specially, what the mothers' did for the children makes them true heroes.

Overall it is a good book but not a great book. It should go along with "German Boy" after you have read the Battle of Berlin because this leads right after that. One of the great quotes of the book is "Do not think about tomorrow because it has not arrived yet, live for today" There are some really touching interviews in this book and if you are interested in the aftermath of the war and about the Heroes after it, read this book.

In his earlier work, German Boy, Wolfgang Samuel related in excruciating and harrowing detail what it was like to be a German child caught up in the final months of WWII, as the American-led forces came into German soil in the West, while the Russians closed in from the East. Caught in between was a German population composed mostly of children and women, clinging to life without the help of their men, trying desperately to stay alive while keeping together what was left of their families. Life itself became a series of mad flights to dodge the crossfire of battle, and then, when the shooting stopped, it became no better, degenerating into a bleak struggle for survival in a ravaged and impoverished land, where the cruelty of the war itself was replaced by a savage and anarchic quest for daily subsistence.

Samuel, now Colonel Samuel, United States Air Force (retired), has given us his own story in German Boy, how he survived and how he eventually found a fulfilling life and career in the US. As he recalled this phase of his life, he realized that he was part of a larger whole, a generation of children who lived through these same horrors of war and yet somehow went on to become normal and productive persons. The War of Our Childhood is his compilation of first-person stories told by members of that generation. In a series of 27 interviews, Samuel lets each tell his or her story, although some were reluctant to be interviewed, to relive those suppressed memories of long ago. The book is organized into three chapters: Those who faced the war directly on the ground; and those who were either displaced by their conquerors from the East or forced to live under them at war's end. Underlying nearly every story is the constant fear of the Russians, whose cruelty and barbarism were whetted by the additional motivation of revenge. This fear and the flight to the West of millions of Germans in the face of the advancing hordes form the single consistent background throughout this period of chaos and displacement.

In nearly every story a kind of indomitable spirit shines through, especially among the women, who somehow kept on going. Some stories are more shocking than others, but one still wonders how the German nation and culture survived such decimation and onslaught. Yet in spite of their violent and deprived start in life, these children persevered, grew up, and went on to build meaningful lives, somehow made stronger for their hardships and experience. Lessons for the reader need not be expressly articulated; Colonel Samuel lets the people speak for themselves. This reviewer, who as a six-year-old fled Pomerania with his mother and younger brother, just one step ahead of the tanks and with shots ringing in his ears, experienced many of these same events. From reading The War of Our Childhood he now comes away both enligtened and a bit saddened, but reminded one more time never to take for granted the good things he enjoys today.

THE WAR OF OUR CHILDHOOD
Wolfgang Samuel
ISBN 1-57806-482-1

This is a moving work by Wolfgang Samuel about German children in WWII, their recollections of things endured and things taken away from the experience. In the author's earlier book, GERMAN BOY, he wrote about his own childhood as a refugee during the war and the debt he owed his mother. In this book, he interviews survivors and learns the details of their stories. Some did not wish to relive those years, but did so reluctantly with the writer's encouragement. He was one of them. The reader is privileged to experience these accounts, some of which were not previously shared with anyone.

One must steel oneself to read events in these stories. Some of the things that happened are terrifying and difficult to confront. They are tragic in the truest sense. These stories are about children who lost their parents and relatives, homes, and an entire way of life. Some were strafed by low flying fighters on the way home from school, and a number saw or heard women, sometimes relatives, being raped by Russian soldiers. Most endured the elements and were hungry more often than not. These stories are about kids who survived the war with only the clothes they wore, viewed in the areas where they ended up as refugee riffraff.

Why read such a book? Perhaps, the answer is to learn more about the experience of other human beings, in a time not so distant, who were on the losing end of the war. Also, everything is not as unambiguous as one might think. For example, a number of those who were German children then report that Russian soldiers who raped women were ironically, generally kind to children, "even generous at times, sharing the little they had." One man even said he forgave the Russians who raped his mother, that it was their leaders who encouraged them to take revenge on the Germans. Other surprising information of a lighter nature in this book is that many Russians learned to speak German relatively quickly, and even low-ranking soldiers showed a remarkable language aptitude.

One comes away from this book recognizing the strength of character and resourcefulness of these people. Most give credit to the mothers who guided and saved them while their fathers were away fighting and dying in the war. They talk about how their families worked as a team under the mother's leadership, to survive. A number said that they thought of their fathers only as photographs. Surprisingly, few of them had much bitterness about what they endured. Courage and discipline was the rule among them, and it served them well in surviving. Many experienced all the adversity that one can imagine. Those of us who think we have endured difficulty in life may change our minds after reading this book. Wolfgang Samuel's accomplishment in compiling these stories is enormous and worthy of the utmost respect.

A large pictorial book not suitable for reading but for skimming thru on the Waterloo facts. Quite well-presented, it has its fair share of editorial typos. I like the well-presented maps.

This is the kind of history book I like to buy. No expense has been spared on this effort to present and also portray the battle of Waterloo. I sat with this book in a store for a few minutes and after reviewing it I raced to the counter with it, eager to add it to my Napoleonic collection. Objective (yes, even though it's about Waterloo) in-depth, and 'illuminating'.

This book is not just another book on the Waterloo campaign. As the author states this book is not meant as a blow by blow account of the action but rather a look at different aspects of the battle including: The campaign, Orders of Battle, Command & Control, the battlefield, the various arms of the armies, and of course the main highlights of the battle. The last section takes an impartial look at the predominate myths and controversies surrounding the battle of Waterloo and the author comes up with his own conclusions in regards to them.

The book is massive (432pages) and makes superb use of colourful maps and photographs of the battlefield which explain the battle situation at key times, the deployment and various formations of forces.

The book also provides additional curious information by the use of text boxes including some first account experiences of the battle.

All in all this is an absolutely superb book, well researched using various sources of information, beautifully presented and printed on high quality paper. I have found it hard to put down , as I keep poring over the maps and digesting all the wonderful information to found in this book. This is a must buy for anyone with an interest in the Waterloo campaign. Lets hope Mark Adkin will do the same with other Napoleonic battles.